In recent past, due to rapid advancements in aviation technology, there has been a surge in the development, improvement and use of remotely piloted aircraft. The remotely piloted aircraft are now increasingly used for a variety of purposes like surveillance, disaster relief operations, aerial imaging, military combat, and so forth. The critical element for the success of any remotely piloted aircraft, such as a drone, is the ability to efficiently control the operation of the remotely piloted aircraft.
Presently, there exist many techniques to regulate the operation of the remotely piloted aircraft as discussed herewith. An existing technique uses a pre-programmed set of instructions or commands integrated into the remotely piloted aircraft to control functionality of the remotely piloted aircraft. However, this method is not reliable in case of anomalous conditions for which specific instructions are not available.
In another technique, replicated flight control panels similar to those in the remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) are set up at a control station where an operator can keep a check and control various flight parameters of the RPA. The operator actions for control are transmitted wirelessly and replicated at the flight control panel in the aircraft. This approach lacks measures for interaction in case the communication link is weak or severed. Another existing method for communicating instructions to the RPA uses satellite communication. However, in this method noise or interference gets generated due to atmospheric disturbances and disrupts the interchange of instructions/data between the operator and the RPA.
Therefore, in light of the above-stated discussion, there exists a need for improved techniques for controlling remotely piloted aircraft from a ground station.